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One Fifth of World's Population Can't See Milky Way At Night
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Cosmos Magazine: "Light pollution has caused one-fifth of the world's population — mostly in Europe, Britain and the US — to lose their ability to see the Milky Way in the night sky.
'The arc of the Milky Way seen from a truly dark location is part of our planet's natural heritage,' said Connie Walker, and astronomer from the US National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tucson, Arizona.
Yet 'more than one fifth of the world population, two thirds of the US population and one half of the European Union population have already lost naked eye visibility of the Milky Way.'"
When I originally moved into my house years ago, I was surrounded by farmland, but in the past few years my area got built up with Shopping Centers, Neighborhoods and whatnot. The light pollution has become so bad that I don't even bother bringing out my telescope anymore on summer nights. The convenience of having many stores close is nice, but everything it comes with price and I think this one is a little bit too much. I originally moved to the area to get out of Philadelphia, now it's not much different in terms of the sky.
Just because you are wrong and I called you out on it doesn't mean I am a Troll.
I just recently got a new DSLR camera so now I'm playing around with all it's fancy features. I figured I would see if I could get a picture of the Milky Way from my deck in Cambridge MA. After processing the heck out of it I got about 20-30 stars... it was really kinda sad.
from the light pollution to really realize what you're missing. The two times I have been been in awe of the night sky were,
1. In the middle of the Atlantic on a boat
2. In the desert in Mauritania
Also on your astronomical to do list, head to the southern hemisphere. There's a whole different set of stars there. (Besides Nicole Kidman)
In our last vacation, my four-year old spent at least 30 minutes staring up to the night sky with his mouth open...
No sig for the moment.
No, I won't continue with the Texas theme song.
But I will say that having lived on Nantucket Island, New York City, and now California's Central Valley, I definitely appreciate going back to the sandbar and seeing what a night sky really looks like. I did spend a night in the Badlands of South Dakota -- and I think that is the most stars I've ever seen...it was like the entire sky wasn't black with pinpoints of light, but more of a fuzzy white with brighter spots. Truly amazing until the buffalo attack... (kidding)
I live in Amsterdam, and I'm happy if I can see more than just Venus and Jupiter.
The first time I went on vacation to Africa (south-western Sahara) was a revelation! I didn't just see stars, I saw a gigantic haze across the sky. Cityboy had never seen anything like that.
Cool detail about that vaction (to Timbuctoo, by the way): our group had a retired British nerd who'd worked for Brittish intelligence and could explain how to find various interesting stars when starting from Orion's belt. It was amazing is so many different ways.
In our last vacation, my four-year old spent at least 30 minutes staring up to the night sky with his mouth open...
I know what you mean. I took our daughters camping just a month ago, and the 2.5 year old asked what all the lights in the sky were. Despite that, being _my_ daughter, she was able to identify the Big Dipper and find Polaris, by herself (thank you Stellarium)! That, at two and a half!
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
I saw a video of the night sky where you could see the center of the Milky Way move across - if you showed me that eight years ago I wouldn't believe it was real. Due to living near Chicago most of my life, for the longest time I typically only saw a few dozen stars, and thought only a few hundred were visible with the naked eye.
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There is nothing like driving at night in a truly dark area... my headlights seem to end about 20 feet in front of me and illuminate almost nothing. It is creepy at first but fantastic once you are familiar with it.
Yeah well, I live on a mountain, can see the Milky Way most nights, get daily mail & UPS & FedEx service, have my choice of 2 decent broadband services, can get over-the-air DTV, and am only about 1/2 mile from a paved (but mostly unlighted thank goodness) road. Granted, shopping is not so close, 15 minute drive to a quick-mart, 30 minutes to anything substantial--such as Costco, Safeway, Home Depot, major mall, excellent restaurants, the state university, or several medical centers. Oh woe is me, deprived of freedom and comfort ;-)
Of course brutal high winter winds, deep snow, and spending lots of quality time with a chainsaw are not for everyone. But I love it!
What was really amazing was once I went camping with some friends up in the mountains and at the time someone had the right contact and we were able to borrow a piece of Gen 3 night vision. Lying on the ground in the mountains with a high quality image intensifier was pretty crazy. You could see an almost continuous stream of meteors as well as more stars then I ever imagined.
you could always go to North Korea.
Granted, there are a few other problems you'd have to deal with, just not light pollution.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
I've loved the night sky since I was a kid and growing up in rural NC, I could, and still can, see the Milky Way, observe nebula, etc..
However, I spent a night in the Moroccan desert and was just slobberknockered at the sky. Likewise, I camped in the Peruvian Andes and the clarity and seeing the southern hemisphere stars for the first time was just mind warping.
We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. - HST
I drove out west a few years ago. Took 140 out through southern Oregon. It was just BLACK. No moon, no lights, nothing but starlight.
Once I got up in the mountains a bit I pulled off and just looked at the stars. It was amazing. I must have spent 4 hours out there just looking up.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order- Ed Howdershelt Via Tass
'Light pollution' is all man-caused light, regardless of the source. Like noise pollution, it doesn't -actually- do any harm, it's just a clever way for someone to say they hate it.
I've never really understood this awe for nature that most people seem to have. It's not like a miracle created them... They were there long before you were born and will be there long after. They look vaguely interesting, but it's nothing to spend hours and hours staring it. They really don't move much, from our point of view.
It's a fine hobby (as most are), and astronomers have come up with some mighty interesting theories... But to say 'everyone should see the sky!' is the same as 'everyone should have a big back yard!' It's nice and all, but just not possible.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
My family has lived in northern NJ for most of my life. My dad went out to visit friends in Arizona a few weeks back and he returned home gushing over the natural beauty. When he started talking about all the stars at night, I asked him if he noticed the white cloudy streaks across the sky. When I told him what those were he was astounded. Its the first time I ever saw someone literally star-struck.
I did pretty much the same thing. I went camping and saw the milky way for the first time. In my 30's.
Honestly - my first words once I saw it were "What the hell is that?"
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
That reason alone is why I like the vast nothingness of living in west Texas, you can see and actually use human night vision because there isn't anything around to be a light pollutant, downside being there is no major cities and have to drive nearly 40mi to work.
Anything can be found funny, from a certain point of view.
I grew up about 100 miles from the nearest metro area, and we could see the stars beautifully. We could see the glow of two different metro areas on the horizon (each about 100 miles away), but that was it. Since being an adult, I've lived in metro areas.
I was driving, either on I-10 or I-5, in either case I was running almost the full length of it. One trip, my girlfriend's daughter was with us. We stopped in the middle on nowhere at about 3am, where you couldn't even see the glow from any city, most drivers had stopped for the night, and even truckers were stopped and sleeping. We looked up, and saw everything. She was amazed. She grew up between two of the previously mentioned metro areas, so not more than 30 miles from either one, and the light pollution prevented seeing much of anything, even 30 miles out. That was the first time she saw the night's sky the way it's suppose to be seen. I had almost forgotten how amazing it was. We spent an hour stopped, looking at the stars. Sometimes those long drives are worth more than just getting from point A to point B. On I-5 and I-10, there's a whole lot of nothing, but sometimes that's the perfect place to get the most beautiful view.
Another night, I stopped with another friend at the exit in the middle of "Alligator Alley" (the southern most East/West part of I-75) to watch a meteor shower. Even though we were a long way from anything (more than a day's walk from either side), the light pollution still obscured our view slightly. We could see the brighter meteor flashes though, so it was worth it. Of course, Alligator Alley has it's name for a reason. I grew up in rural Florida, and I knew the sound of alligators. When we got out of the car, and stopped talking, I realized there were at least 5 alligators not more than 15 feet away, and it was too dark to see any of them. The mosquitoes felt like someone was throwing ping pong balls at us. We quickly got back in the car, and watched the show from there.
When I lived in the hills north of Porter Ranch, CA (on the edge of Los Angeles), even though we were above the smog cloud, I don't remember a night where we could see many if any stars. Most days we could look down on the smog cloud, and sometimes we could even see through it. :) I can only remember two days were I could see clearly from our hill to the other side of the valley (approx 8 miles). Living in the valley, there was frequently enough light pollution, where you could see at night with no moon, just from the light being reflected in the smog.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
While it is a sad fact that you can't watch the night sky a lot of places (and it is - I remember taking a road trip from Chicago up to Wisconsin one night to watch a meteor shower), it seems to be an unfortunate necessity. Here's an analogy for those who don't get the point. If you've ever been camping, you know that if you want to stargaze, you have to wander away from the campfire. If its a group of 5 or so people camping, its a small fire, and it doesn't take you long to meander away, look up in awe, and wander back. Now increase your camp size. Now its fifty people. You have bigger fires, and probably more than one. You have enough people that at least one fire is burning all night. Increase size by another factor of ten and you find more fires. Now you probably qualify as a community. You probably have specialized fires for a blacksmith or other craftsman. You likely have dozens of fires, a good many of which will burn throughout the night. The distance you must walk increases proportionately. Now we're going to make the jump. With 10,000 times the residents of our hypothetical community, a large city would have 1000s of fires (now electric lights) to provide security. At this point - one has to travel a significant distance to really get a good look at the sky (from downtown Chicago, the distance is approximately 80 miles if you're traveling north). Yes it's sad - but in order to maintain dense civilizations that give us all the things that better the human condition, we must sacrifice some of those things. And as others have pointed out, it's not as if those things are completely gone. Take a bus or a train ride. Drive out to the middle of nowhere.
I have in-laws in suburban Phoenix, and there is an "anti-light pollution" ordinance in effect there. NO STREETLIGHTS. It is very eerie and strange, driving around dense suburbs, in near total darkness. You see the headlights of the other traffic, the endless banality of the lighted signs at strip-malls, but aside from the safety lights in the parking lots, no lights on the street.
In contrast, I (very fortunately) live in a fairly rural area in California; though we DO have streetlights. And the view of the stars at night is better in Phoenix. I have to drive about a half hour away from home to get a decent view of the night sky.
Now: compared to where I grew up - Chicago. . . I remember being disappointed when Haley's Comet came around. I couldn't even see the damn thing on a clear night. And that was after an hour's drive out into the "country".
Light pollution ordinances seem to be a very fascistic way to address this; public-safety is really more important than everyone being able to see stars from their backyard. It's an old notion that is apparently dying for us. It's sad. But as we (humanity) breed faster than cockroaches, I don't really see much alternative.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
For me the best thing about being able to see the Milky Way is the sense of perspective you get from the realisation of what it is you're looking it in relation to where you are. Next time you get to see the Milky Way, think about how the galaxy is in a flat-ish plane, and how you and the band you are seeing are both in the same plane. Once you think about it, you mentally orientate yourself in this plane and it starts to mess with your perception of what's "up" and what's "down". The discrepancy between the local "up and down" that you experience on Earth and the bigger "up and down" you see from the Milky Way puts things into perspective in quite a powerful way, in that you stop seeing the sky as a big mass of stars and start to see how you + the Earth fits in to the bigger picture. Of course this may all be obvious to a lot of people here on /. but it isn't to most non-nerds, so if you're on a camping trip and want to impress your mates (or a girl..), try this, it works great ;)
Was the most absolutely beautiful night in my life, until the moon came up anyway. I can't number how many friends looked up at the sky for the first time and realized the beauty that was always hidden away.
Really rather wish they didn't fix it so damn fast. Should make these blackouts a yearly thing, Earth hour is nothing in comparison.
The problem is that some people just don't get it. They don't take the time to look at this universe in awe and wonder and simply don't care about being able to see the Milky Way at night. They're not bad people. They're just ignorant.
If you live in a smaller town and even suggest the concept of "light pollution", people look at you and assume you are some sort of left-leaning-environmental-wacko. It doesn't matter how conservative your politics are--some people hear you discuss "light pollution" and they lump you into the same camp as all of the "tree huggers", "greens", "liberals", "communists", or whatever other groups they hold as "the enemy". I've even advocated just going a few nights a year without lights, coinciding with various meteor showers. Again, I must be a "nut job". After all, there's "no such thing as light pollution".
Of course, it doesn't help if you live in a town that is home to a major manufacturer of lighting components for public spaces and industry, either. Then such "light pollution" comments are viewed as attacks on the town's economy, too.
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
You know, one other thing I miss as a kid...lightening bugs/fireflies. What the hell happened to them? Last year some time, I was out and happened to see a couple of them and was so thrilled. Back when I grew up, there were TONS of them all over the place every summer.
Now? you're lucky to see 1 or two a year it seems.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I grew up outside of Orlando, now it's encompassed by the city limits but not city itself, and I used to be able to lay down in the yard for a terrific view of the starts. It was rural then but it's urban now.
Of course, Alligator Alley has it's name for a reason. I grew up in rural Florida, and I knew the sound of alligators.
One thing I miss since moving is going to a BBQ and having gator tail, frog legs, and wild boar.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
There was a practical study conducted by the town government of the German municipality of Rheine. The article here in Der Spiegel mentions this. Despite turning off much of the town's night lighting, night crime incidence rates remained low.
It seems that the modern streetlight is little more than the grown-up's version of the night light. I say it's high time we all grow up and learn to live with the dark. It's really not that frightening.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."